More to Come & Lots to Do: The 405 meets ItsNate

ItsNate has always been drawn to ominous and spacious instrumentals that allow his emphatic, articulate flow plenty of room to vent.

With more and more artists milking their own streaming numbers by releasing absurdly long albums, there’s something to be said about concision. ItsNateknows about getting to the point: he’s changed the dynamics of countless songs with little more than a quick one-liner or a four-word bar. And as of late, the London rapper has perfected the art of the EP.

More to Come & Lots to Do lands well in the aftermath of a series of successful single releases throughout the past years to display an artist who has fully stepped up and into his moment without becoming too self-serious. There’s a sense of reflective appreciation throughout More to Come & Lots to Do, but his hallmark casualness keeps the EP from becoming suffocating.

ItsNate has always been drawn to ominous and spacious instrumentals that allow his emphatic, articulate flow plenty of room to vent. He commits more than ever to this pared-down sound, as he works to find the right balance between the boisterous and the introspective.

Tell me about your most recent release, More to Come & Lots to Do - EP.

This EP is quite cohesive but it's very much composed of a bunch of songs, good songs, that I rapped on. It's no heart and soul shit, on reflection. There is an open element to the EP and I did shed a layer, but there's a lot more depth that I'm looking to go into on future projects.

When we spoke last year, you told me you didn't think you were a "project kind of guy", you preferred to put out singles. What made you change your mind and release a solid body of work?

Putting out singles is cool but I think it was necessary for me to put out an EP so that if people do stumble upon it, they can get a better picture of what goes on in my brain and what they can expect, rather than getting totally different vibes from each single track I release and get confused with all the jumping around. On this EP, although the sonics jump around and the moods change, you still get a consistent narrative.

What are you hoping that people take away from this EP?

I hope people realize that I rap well. That I'm having fun with music. That I'm just getting back into expressing myself through music. And that they understand that this ain't it. This EP isn't meant to change your life. If it does, that's amazing and I'm humbled. But this is one EP, there's more coming, so just hold this for now and soak it in. We have more to come.

You brought the incredible Taliwoah on board for "My Ways". How did that come about and how was it to work with her?

She's a friend of the family, I was introduced to her by one of the SLOCAL mandem a while ago and we were always cool. The song needed a female element and I really like her tone so I thought she'd be perfect for it. I hit her up and she came down to the studio (even though she was crazy busy) and laid her vocals. She's got a great work ethic.

How did you feel people reacted to "Show Me" when you released it as a single?

I think people liked it, they found it unexpected, that sound coming from me. I think people really fucked with the production and with how I did the vocals on that song, that was new for me. They can tell that I'm having fun on that record, that I'm experimenting with my voice in certain parts of it while still doing stuff on it that I've been doing. I think it served as a way to open my music up so that they were ready to hear different things from me in the future.

After getting positive feedback from fans on something new that you tried, how do you strike a balance between making more of what they want you to do versus making more of what you want to do?

Obviously the people are your best focus group; they're gonna let you know what hits and they're gonna give you a consensus viewpoint. But for me, I'm just happy that they like how I used my voice, because I like it too! The goal is to get to the point where you and the fans are on the same page, you know what I'm saying? Their opinion is a reaffirmation, but I also always trust my own gut and intuition. They might have liked how my voice sounded on that beat, but it's not like I'm gonna go out and make my vocals sound that way on every song from now on and replicate that same vibe every time... People liked it when I took this risk, so that reassures me that I can keep taking risks. It's just about trusting yourself with the greater vision.

What can we expect from the SLOCAL crew this year?

We got shows coming up, we have a new website coming out which I can't wait for, we'll have a lot of new content on there... and a lot of the guys have new music coming out, Blacks, Chennessy, my second EP. This is just the intro, we're just warming up.